Apprentices

Vincent Cable: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills 
	(1)  how many Government-funded apprenticeship places were available in  (a) England,  (b) London,  (c) Richmond-upon-Thames and  (d) Twickenham constituency in each of the last five years;
	(2)  how many Government-funded apprenticeships have been undertaken in  (a) England,  (b) London,  (c) Richmond-upon-Thames and  (d) Twickenham constituency in each of the last five years.

Kevin Brennan: Apprenticeship funding for further education (FE) colleges and providers is set out in a maximum contract value (MCV). This amount reflects the anticipated cost for an academic year of supporting learners continuing on programmes from earlier years as well as new starts. We do not fund on the basis of expected places rather the number of total learners that can be supported in a given year with the funds available.
	Planning assumptions for funded apprenticeship places for the 2009-10 academic year were published in the Grant Letter to the Learning and Skills Council (November 2008). Further to this, we announced a £140 million package to deliver 35,000 extra apprenticeship places over 2009-10. Although information on apprenticeship places is not available, we do publish the number of apprenticeship starts in each academic year, at both a national and sub-national level.
	Apprenticeship Starts for 2003-04 to 2007-08 were published in a statistical first release (SFR) on 25 June 2009:
	http://www.thedataservice.org.uk/statistics/sfrjun09
	Supplementary table 5.1 shows apprenticeship starts by Constituency, Local Authority, Government Office Region and England for 2003-04 to 2007-08.
	Provisional full-year figures for 2008-09 were published in a statistical first release on 22 October:
	http://www.thedataservice.org.uk/statistics/sfroct09
	Supplementary geographic breakdowns will be available shortly after the main release.

Apprentices: Milton Keynes

Mark Lancaster: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what plans he has to extend the apprenticeship schemes in operation in Milton Keynes, with particular reference to the scheme operated by ABB Robotics; and if he will make a statement.

Kevin Brennan: The development of high level technician skills in industry is one of our key priorities in responding to the economic downturn. The engineering apprenticeship programme operated by ABB Robotics UK in conjunction with Milton Keynes college is the type of high quality investment in emerging technologies we wish to encourage and the reason why we are continuing to expand our investment in apprenticeships. We expect to invest over £1 billion this year, and last week we published provisional data for 2008-09 showing 234,000 people started an apprenticeship—a record number.
	The National Apprenticeships Service is managing plans to promote and expand apprenticeships and will work with companies such as ABB to develop and support their skills investment.